Pandemic-disrupted supply chains are pretty much righted. Inflation is already back near normal levels. Labor shortages have eased. The Federal Reserve is poised to cut interest rates next year.
We’ll still get a thousand stories about a looming recession.
Inflation is back near normal, but prices are not, and wages have not shifted to match those prices (partially due to the government fighting “wage inflation”). People are still worse off than they used to be. I don’t think this is Biden’s fault, but here we are anyway.
Biden has called this out. A lot of companies are still raising prices or aren’t letting prices fall. They’re still saying “oh, this is inflation causing this” while their costs fall and their profits rise.
Biden can’t stop them singlehandedly. (He’s a President, not a Supreme Dictator.) But he can call them out on it and use what powers he has to bear down on them somewhat if they don’t stop.
It might not get all of them to stop (some might risk fines because the profits would be greater), but hopefully it will direct the anger towards the actual culprits - big companies taking advantage of past inflation to raise prices.
Biden can’t stop them singlehandedly.
No but since he couldn’t stop them he decided the working class would pay the price and had the Federal Reserve fuck over the American people.
The Federal Reserve is independent of the President. They technically answer to Congress, but in reality it’s to the big banks.
Powell was reappointed by Biden. Biden is responsible for what Powell does.
No one has been talking about a recession lately. The stories have all been shit is too expensive for the majority of Americans.
And…well…they’re true.
If Biden wants the media to cover him better he needs to do what Republicans do: give them a simple message. The other day I saw a Biden “I did that!” sticker on a national park fee payment station. Blatantly untrue? Yes. But it’s simple and people aren’t going to research or even think about whether park fees are Biden’s fault.
“The economy sucks and it’s the president’s fault” is a simple message. But:
The U.S. unemployment rate was just 3.7 percent in November — barely above the pre-pandemic level of 3.5 percent, which was a five-decade low. Annual inflation has also fallen sharply from a peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022 to 3.1 percent in November, and the economy has defied widespread predictions of a recession.
These numbers will just be ignored. They don’t fit in a headline or even an unpaid tweet. And I find people’s natural reaction to numbers is to distrust them. “Yeah, but that’s not the real unemployment/inflation/GDP/etc”.
As for what that simple message can be, I have no idea. “Rising employment, plummeting inflation” might be an option, I dunno. But he needs to get someone in charge of messaging who will simplify things.
